The specialists who apply their scientific knowledge and clinical expertise to the diagnosis, and treatment, from health to complex illness are Internal Medicine Physicians or Internists. Internists are more focused on the care of adults.
It emphasizes the use of the best medical treatments available in caring for patients. The internists are trained between three to seven years more even after completing their medical school. Their training is dedicated to prevent, diagnose, and treat the diseases that affect adults.
How do Internal Medicine and Family Medicine differ?
There are fundamental differences between these two specialties that focus on patient care activities in different ways. Both are developed from very different backgrounds. As there were growth and development of pediatrics as a separate specialty devoted to children only, internal medicine is a scientific approach to medicine that was applied to the wide spectrum of diseases that commonly affect adults.
It is not easy to understand the differences between family and internal medicine, as the majority of patients attended by family providers are adults, thus overlapping with the patient population that is also attended by internists. Another reason is that increasingly family practitioners do not include neonatal-care or obstetrics or significant surgeries as part of their practices.
Family medicine is conceptually built around the social unit – all family members, rather than only focusing on a specific population such as – women, children, or adults; and specific organ system such as – urology, otolaryngology or surgery (nature of an intervention). The family practitioners are exposed to be able to deal with the entire spectrum of medical issues that may be encountered by any members of the family.
In each internal medicine subspecialties such as endocrinology, rheumatology, and infectious diseases and neurology; the internal medicine practitioners are required to have significant experience in these areas. Adequate experience in psychiatry, ophthalmology, dermatology, non-operative orthopedics, geriatrics, rehabilitation that provides comprehensive care for adults, is required by internists. They are meant to take care of both, inpatient and outpatient settings.
Family medicine practitioners are mostly dedicated to outpatient care. They are required to provide acute, chronic, and wellness care for their patients. They have a broad skill set that is valuable for communities with a wide range of medical issues. Medical practitioners coordinate care among different specialists and subspecialists. They are also required to provide inpatient care in emergency settings, and in addition to it, also assist with behavioral health issues, and population health.
Subsequently, these differences between internal and family medicine emphasize discipline and different strengths in caring for patients. Internists are supposed to be well prepared to provide primary care to adults, which means, they should be aware of both general medicine and internal medicine subspecialties.
It is internists’ responsibility to develop expertise in diagnosing the wide variety of diseases that commonly affect adults, and at the same time managing complex medical situations where multiple conditions affect a patient. They are always well prepared to provide primary care to adults through outpatient care for patients that are facing more medical complications regarding their treatments. Thus, both have unique skill sets and important roles in the care of adult patients and providing care, and attending to the specific needs of their patients.
What is Internal Medicine EHR?
Internal medicine is experiencing unprecedented complexity due to increased legal compliance issues. The extensive and intuitive internal medicine EHR is now tailored to meet the practices’ workflow to meet adult diagnosis and prevention needs, streamlining communication and access to the vital information. This software enables internists to expedite their service and put in more time and effort on their patients during their clinic or hospital visits or nursing homes. The internal medicine EHR focuses on subspecialties, to name a few –
- Nervous system
- Women’s health
- Substance abuse
- Disease prevention
- Reproductive organs
What challenges does an Internist face?
Internists do face competition from the primary care providers, nurse practitioners and family practitioners too. They also have time-consuming administrative work – documentation requirements, prior authorizations and keeping up with updated medical healthcare requirements. Last but not least, reducing health care costs and efforts to prevent misuse or overuse of unnecessary diagnostic tests or treatments. Due to these rising operating costs, cloud-based solutions are becoming more popular. In addition to popularity, cloud-based solutions are becoming affordable with easy accessibility and adaptability.
What are the benefits of the Internal Medicine EHR?
Before visiting, your practice can send preventive screening appointment reminders. This can act as gentle reminders to patients to bring their insurance details. This can save costs on missed appointments. Patients who prefer to interact with their medical practices online can do so by sending lab results, or education materials, securely. This empowers patients to manage patients’ diagnosis and prevention.
Internal medicine EHR reduces clicks and check-in time while enhancing communication and patient satisfaction. It also helps to view patient history on past examination and diagnosis and at the same time securely transferring completed diagnosis and other related information to the patient record.
This software uses integrated interoperability that seamlessly sends all the required documents to the referring specialists/provider. It also uses numerous charting templates that easily edit and modify pre-existing templates to fit the practices’ workflow. These templates can be custom created by the internists according to their requirements.
Some examples of customized sub-specialty are:
-
- Sleep medicine and sports medicine practices
- Osteopathic practitioners and family practitioner assistants
- Telemedicine, and concierge family practices
- Adolescent medicine and geriatric medicine practices
- Family nurse and family practitioner assistants
This software helps your staff and practice as a whole to stay organized and save time. It helps the practice to spend more time on patient care with its patient engagement tools and practice management. It cuts down on paperwork and eliminates manual entry, because of customizable intake forms. It has simplified appointment scheduling process, thus reducing no-shows and increasing incentives for the practice. This software also includes population health and mobile solutions that optimize practices’ strategy for delivering high-quality care.
